D3 XC At Large Qualification Process

The short answer is they don't know. Some of these regions don't even have a host yet because the NCAA decided to wait to dump the official news until late June. The NCAA had known about this plan for months and certain coaches knew about it, but they weighted to the 4th of July weekend to drop the news. I'm sure the NCAA rep is now on vacation.

Likely, out of Region performances will carry way more weight now. You have to beat someone to justify getting extra teams out a Region. The real question is whether the NCAA will be brave enough to only take one team from the really bad Regions and up to six or seven from the better Regions. More likely they will look for more equity and let some subpar teams in the meet to "be fair".

I'll be very curious to see how many teams line up in every Region. The NCAA seems to think every Region will have more participating teams now. That seems unlikely. A team that has a crummy budget and an AD who doesn't care won't jump at this opportunity to compete.

CryanRapman wrote:

but they weighted to the 4th of July weekend to drop the news.

I've never in my life seen this homonym error.

Better be minimum 2 from each region.

Not a chance. This a rare year when the South could arguably deserve two teams, but there are a couple regions that only have one national level team. If I'm in Haverford's Region I race in-Region all year and then try to score as close to them at Regionals to justify getting out. If I'm in the Midwest or Great Lakes, I try for several Inter-Regional races to justify why a 5th place Regional finish deserves a National berth.

Regional representation is more important than getting the 5th best team from a region to nationals. National championship is to determine best 3 teams so getting 5 in from one region as opposed to to 2 from a weak region is pointless. Too bad if you are the 8th best team in the country but 5th in your region.

Yeah, it's just like how, at the olympic trials, an event's team can't consist of three athletes all sponsored by the same brand. Cus who cares about someone being the best, it's the representation we want baby.

Oh that's not how it works? Whoops. C'mon this has got to be bait. A region like Metro will likely only get 1 team to nationals and we know who it'll be already.

Terrible analogy.

It is like the US having 6 of the 8 best 100 meter guys in the entire world but only 3 get to go to the Olympics. Hundreds of countries get to send somebody slower than an American who could possibly medal. Or it is like HS XC qualifying for state. Each sectional maybe gets to send 2 teams even though 1 section may have the 5 best teams in the state. Edina didn't qualify for state a few years ago but qualified for NXN.

Yah but the Olympics work that way cus it's all about representing and competing for your nation. There's national pride in there. Nobody goes to XC nationals to represent their region. Regional pride isn't a thing... Unless you're some crazy dude who's just REALLY into them Great Lakes.

You want your crappy 10th ranked team to get their participation letter. The point of the meet is to determine the best team. Take 2 from each region and a few at large teams. That is how D1 works. But I forgot that D3 is really just a glorified college JV.